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Nicholas Felton on Design’s Data-Driven Future

Data is everywhere, just waiting to be visualized. For instance, the number of times you brushed your teeth last year? That’s not useless information. Just think: That data could be a nifty line graph, charting the length of time you brushed and the corresponding number of cavities. Or how about how often you Instagrammed a restaurant meal? That could easily become a pie chart dissecting your most documented food spots. “We live in this new age where data is everywhere,” data-viz ace Nicholas Felton tells Gestalten. “It’s become this new material that everyone is working with.”

In a video interview with the art and design publisher, Felton muses on the burgeoning field of data-driven design and how important it is for creators to have a fluency with not just text and images but also with the information that surrounds us in our everyday lives. “I’m always looking for sources of data or information that I can investigate, interrogate, visualize and try to find the stories that are lurking in them,” Felton tells Gestalten.

Of course, Felton is the leading expert in turning quotidian routines into mesmerizing visualizations. His annual Feltron Report is a glowing example of how seemingly mundane information can tell a beautiful story with just a little artistic treatment, and his work on Facebook’s Timeline has helped the rest of us visualize (as much as we might like to forget it) the minutia of our past. Felton goes on to say that data and design still remain fairly separate worlds, but he suspects that the two will converge as more designers learn to code and combine tech savvy with their innate artistic capabilities. “It’s a landscape that’s very sparsely occupied at the moment between the strictly data people and the strictly design,” he says… “I think it will be really interesting to see how these different species of designers evolve.”